


Ancient Exiles

by betweenheroesandvillains



Category: The Arcana (Visual Novel)
Genre: Exile, Julian's family, Multi, OC heavy, Past Traumatic Experiences, Worldbuilding, constant feelings of anxiety, mentions of gore, mentions of torture, there will probably be a proper rating at some point
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-01
Updated: 2017-12-01
Packaged: 2019-02-09 07:17:14
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,164
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12882849
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/betweenheroesandvillains/pseuds/betweenheroesandvillains
Summary: The powerful and the happy never go into exile.- Alexis de Tocqueville





	Ancient Exiles

The wind was howling. No, not howling. Screaming.  
But that, he thought, was not the problem. The wind could be screaming and crying and yelling profanities at them if it wanted to. What would kill them in the end was the cutting cold.  
He could feel Nadia shiver and was more than thankful for that. She was not lucid enough to answer any of his questions, so it was the only way for him to know that she was not getting hypothermia. Not yet.  
The same did not go for Asra. He was quiet, and for the most part burrowed deep into his coats, and Julian turned towards him every few minutes, scared to find the spot slightly to his left vacant. That Asra had moved through the early stages of hypothermia without Julian noticing. Because finding him, in this weather, would take time they did not have.  
Julian tightened his grip around Nadia's legs and pressed on, periodically checking the direction by putting a mental map over the landscape. He had not navigated this way in years and was more than glad for the distraction it offered. The precise calculations he had to do and the alterations of landmarks he had to take into account kept his mind away from the constant loop of What if.  
He knew that Asra getting lost would only leave him with one choice, but it was not a choice he was willing to consider. Because going back for him would kill Nadia. And saving Nadia would kill Asra. And Julian, who had grown up with these decisions, who had made them all his life, found himself incapable to make this one. Especially not with everything they had sacrificed to get to where they were.  
Julian shook his head and turned slightly to check on Asra, only to find him wide-eyed under the woolly brim of his hood.  
“What is it,” he yelled, his words muffled through the scarf he had pulled up over his nose. Asra must have heard him well enough, though, because he caught Julian's gaze and pointed ahead, his outstretched arm shaking.  
Julian followed it with his eyes and his stomach dropped.  
Several hundred feet away, the few trees that grew this far south bowed when they got hit by a gust of wind that would make all the earlier ones seem like ripples compared to a rogue wave. He stopped dead in his tracks, taking in how fast the gust was moving.  
“Get behind me.” Asra didn't hesitate or question him, just stepped into the slipstream Julian's back offered. Julian closed his eye, locked his knees and muttered, “Keep your head down, Nadia.”

It was like hitting an ice cold wall. Jumping into a frozen lake could not feel worse. The strangled yelp Julian let out didn't carry over the screaming in his ears, which was sharp enough to even startle Nadia into some form of consciousness. He felt her try to cling closer to him, her arms shifting to find a better grasp.  
He didn't dare to look ahead to see how long this part of the storm would be going on, afraid he might lose his vision to ice crystals or flying splinters. He was one eye short already, he could not afford to lose the other, too.  
Nadia shook and shivered, and Julian was once more reminded that of the three of them, he was the only one who had ever experienced true cold. This was not the first autumn storm he was caught in, nor the worst one. He knew he could make it through this, and their destination was not too far away any more. Just a few more hours of brisk marching, and even at their current speed it would be less than a day.  
Less than a day and they would be warm again. Less than a day to safety.  
As he braced against a particularly vicious gust, Julian pushed the strange feeling aside that was curling and uncurling in his chest like a snake. There was no time to look at it now, when things were still about survival. Despite her uncontrollable shaking, Nadia was a half-dead weight on his back, and Asra was too weak to even produce the small magical flames that had kept them warm for some time.  
Hot pain bloomed over the side of Julian's face when a piece of ice tore his unprotected cheek open. He yelped, the feeling strangely unfamiliar and so different from the cold numbness he had gotten used to that it was almost welcome. At least it jolted him back into moving, into leaning against the storm. Nadia held on to him with a vice-like grasp and Asra's fingers twisted into his coat, and Julian knew that he could not move, afraid they might stray too far from their path. There was nothing to do but wait it out.

The gusts did not last long. Julian had just changed his grasp on Nadia's thighs when they decreased in strength, and as he raised his gaze to assess his surroundings he found them mostly unchanged. The snow had piled higher in some spots and was almost gone in others, but the trees were still standing and except for a few counterbalancing steps they had not moved too far. He sent a quiet thankful prayer to Shevet before turning to Asra.  
“Are you ready to keep going?” The witch was uncharacteristically pale as he looked up, his lips and face dry and cracked. Still, he nodded, and despite things having gone sour between them back in Vesuvia he stepped up beside Julian and clutched the crook of Julian's elbow as if it was an anchor. His tone was determined when he said, “Ready.”  
The twisting thing within Julian uncurled slightly, but he pushed it back under and concentrated on the straight path that only existed in his mind.

Darkness fell faster than Julian had become used to after years up north. The dim twilight that marked noon in these parts of the world faded, leaving him to navigate more by estimation than anything else. With the silhouettes of landmarks just barely standing out against the moonlit sky, Julian reminded himself over and over again that he had walked this way enough times that he ought to be able to find it, even at night. What was a bit of darkness against a bone-deep knowledge? And yet he muttered one well-worn prayer after the other in cycles that, after hours, turned into barely more than gibberish. _Shevet who leads the lost, guide me too; Shevet who makes a path, show me the way too; Shevet who is a lighthouse for the seafaring, point me home too; Shevet_... He had said the litany so many times in his life that it did not even distract him any more.

With the loss of the light, the cold intensified. Nadia, who had buried deeper into her furs and his scarf and almost stopped shivering, started to shake again. The few strands of hair that were not covered by Asra's hood were frozen stiff, and the witch did not walk as much as he allowed Julian to drag him along. Julian's heart though became lighter as he recognized reference point after reference point. Trees in specific formations, followed by a hill he had not seen in years but remembered the shape of. Then, after just enough time to plant the seed of doubt in him, a man-sized stone.  
Another twist in his chest. But there was no use in being emotional now, not when it was still about survival. Not when every step sent painful sparks through his joints, when the weight of Nadia on his back was turning into a millstone and the clattering of Asra's teeth was loud enough to even drown out his own breathing.  
They walked on for a long time, through the dark hours of the night when even Julian could not keep himself from quivering, when the cold cut through their thick furs and boots like a knife, so icy that it was like fire again. Only the waystones in shorter and shorter intervals kept his exhaustion at bay, standing dark against the snow even in the grey half-light. He let his hand hover over every single one as he walked past them. Their sight was both, an answer to his prayers as well as confirmation for the exactness of his mental map. Proof that he would find his way blind if he needed to.  
The thought was not as gentle and hopeful as he had expected. It was more of a fist against his sternum. In his chest, the thing that he did not name twisted sharply in demand. Julian concentrated on shaking instead, on how he almost could not tell where his shivering body ended and Nadia's began, on how Asra seemed to be melting into his side. On his cramping arms and empty stomach, the heaviness of every step, the cracking of his skin in the cold air. He settled his mind on the small discomforts that had accompanied him through the years, that he knew intimately, to ignore his new worries. It was not unlike scratching the scab off an old wound to ignore the haemorrhaging sword cut that was killing you. Julian settled into the dull pain as he pressed on. This aching he preferred to turning the same thought over in his head, to sticking a word to the fear he was carrying around. He would not admit that he was not yet ready to share his secrets.  
Shaking his head, he looked up. And blinked. And blinked again. But no, it was not a trick his tired eyes were playing on him. In the far distance, lights were hovering over the snow, flickering like little flames. When he blinked this time, Julian was trying to keep his tears from flowing. Gently, he poked Asra's side with his elbow. The witch flinched, his face contorted in pain when he gazed up. “Do you see that?”  
Asra turned and looked ahead. The long breath he let out hung in the air as a freezing cloud of mist. “Is this...?”  
Julian thought back, counting the waystones and considering their shapes under his fingers. Then he nodded, his head knocking against Nadia's. “It has to be.” His words sounded choked, as if they were hesitant to be spoken. Still, they seemed to give Asra a bit of strength back. He straightened his back instead of slumping against Julian, and his tone was defiant when he said, “Then let's go!”  
The difference between the wilderness and the outskirts of the village was staggeringly clear. Instead of having to plough through knee-high snow, their feet only sunk in two inches on what had to be streets during the summer months. The lanterns standing in the windows illuminated their way; and Julian knew that if he bothered to lean against any door, it would open. It was one of the most reliable rules of the far south. So many rites and rituals that varied from town to town, but the doors were always open. If they were only looking for a place to sleep, they could ask anywhere.  
It was about more, though, so Julian did not look left or right but instead walked straight on. He knew exactly where he was headed, and he was sick, and something in chest was turning and twisting again, making his heart race the closer he came.  
The house he was headed for was on the other side of the village. Its shape was unmistakable, from the crest of the roof over the shutters to the engravings around the windows. The closer they got, the louder his blood rushed in his ears.  
Only when he stood in front of the door and raised his hand to knock, the world turned quiet. Not even his breath was audible. Only the sound of his gloved knuckles on old wood broke the absolute silence. As if even the gods were holding their breaths to see how this would play out.  
They waited for what felt like an eternity to Julian but was only a couple of seconds. Then, the door opened and golden light swept over them together with a wave of warmth. For one moment, all Julian could feel was that warmth, Nadia shifting towards it subconsciously, Asra swaying when it hit him and the exhaustion caught up with him.  
A low sound pulled him out of his reverie, coming from the person who had opened the door.  
He looked down at the woman, her wide eyes, the lines that were engraved in the corners of her mouth, the familiar tilt of her head. The way her lips moved silently for a long moment before she breathed, “Ilya.”

With a quivering smile, he allowed the sharp sensation in his chest to unfurl and the feeling of _home_ to overtake him. “Hello, Leska.”


End file.
